Equipment is the military hardware needed by units to operate and largely determines their stats. It gets unlocked by researching technologies and is produced by production lines. Panzer III is an example of an equipment.

Contents

The equipment needs of units refer to general equipment types. For example a German division that needs 100 medium tanks can use any mix of variants of Panzer IIIs, Panzer IVs, Panthers, or foreign medium tank equipment.

While an equipment (and its base variant) gets unlocked by research, countries can further modify several types of equipment by spending the respective kind of experience. For example a country may create a variant of their light fighter 2 equipment with increased range by spending air experience.

The statistics (or stats) of the equipment a unit has at its disposal build the base line of the unit's stats. If a unit uses a mix of multiple variants of the same equipment type the resulting stats are a weighted average of those variants' stats. If a unit uses multiple equipment types, their stats are added. For example mechanized infantry battalions use both infantry equipment and mechanized vehicles, so they gain breakthrough from both combined. The unit's speed is determined only by the transport equipment. A lack of equipment leads to proportional reductions in unit stats.

"Lend-Lease" was a maneuver under the U.S. law to enable the Roosevelt administration to continue to supply Great Britain with arms and supplies after the British had exhausted their gold. It was later extended to supplying many other nations as well. In the game, Lend-Lease is a diplomatic action that provides equipment to allies and any non-enemy country that is at war. This may help them win their war, delay defeat, or weaken a common foe. There are strategic reasons for Lend-Lease. A more practical reason is that information learned through the recipient's use of the equipment in combat provides the donor with land, sea or air experience. For most ideologies, the ability to grant Lend-lease requires some minimum level of world tension. Lend-Lease is transported by the recipient's convoys, and the equipment being carried (this can be seen on tooltips for the convoy) goes down with the convoy ship if sunk. All equipment and convoy ships (but not other ships) can be lend-leased. Each equipment item provided with Lend-Lease can be sent in a one-off amount, fixed monthly amount, or as a percentage of monthly production. Recipients of Lend Lease should note that information on stockpiled Lend-Lease equipment appears in the tooltip for the report on that type of equipment in the Logistics window. If the country is not producing or holding any of that type of equipment, there is no report and therefore no tooltip, but the Lend Lease items are available for use. The Lend-Lease terms, however, can be reviewed and modified by clicking to modify lend-lease in the diplomacy window.

Lend-lease provides a way to assist countries in war without being directly involved, and to provide them with better equipment than they can produce on their own or relieve shortages of equipment. Donors of Lend-Lease should be aware that the AI country cannot be relied upon to make full use of complex Lend-Lease equipment. For example, the AI may use only fighters (if sufficiently numerous) while leaving other aircraft in reserve. Or it may stick with unlocking division templates through its research path rather than invent new templates to fit the equipment actually received, so that tanks may sit in storage until either the recipient finds a use for them or whatever is not destroyed is captured. However, when it comes to infantry weapons, troops can always be relied upon to secure the best infantry equipment available to them unless the player manually removes that ability with restrictions in the equipment checkboxes of the division's template. Captured basic infantry weapons are of low quality, but may be better than what is otherwise available in the case of a civil war or a poor country, and should never be needed at home.

If the player owns Together for Victory, a country may also actively lobby to receive lend-lease from another country. The country making the request can see what types of equipment the donor potentially has available and then make requests for one or more of those categories (e.g., Infantry equipment, Towed Artillery, Naval Bombers, Convoys). The potential donor then responds to the request (they may decline some or all or may indicate what equipment they would like to receive and how much.) The potential leaser will then be notified and will respond back about how they will respond to each request - if at all. Good relations, common enemies, and reciprocal help can all help sway the donor's decision. One important consideration for the player is whether the recipient has enough convoys to transport the lend-lease war materials, considering the needs of trade and supply transport. This is why lend-leasing might well start with lend-leasing convoys to a recipient country.